Thanks dude! Glad you like them
Had some bits arrive today that I'd been waiting for for ages it seems! So, without further ado:
The vat-born gladiator stood in the dank unfamiliar room, her finely honed body still glistening with fluid from the amniotic chamber. Noticing that she was not alone, Khali sprawled out low to the ground, feet spaced wide and steadied by a third hand planted on the ground, head cocked to one side. Her hooked lower arm extended out to the side, and the upper raising a curved knife above her head, evoking primal visions of scorpions in the mind of the Astartes before her.
The grav-shackles released with a clank and the Astartes bolted forwards, snatching a long serrated blade from the chamber floor. The hulking human settled into a well-honed combat stance, the dried blood of its previous adversaries caked into its matted hair. The Astartes lunged forwards, blade searching for purchase on Khali's frame, but she was quick to dodge this first strike. The augmented brute circled around, wrapping a chain around its free hand. Khali leapt out, catching the warrior by surprise and raking her knife across its forearm. She rebounded from the wall behind and landed a double-armed jab on her opponents torso. Barely registering this assault, the Astartes lashed out with a brutal punch, ribs cracking beneath its slab-like fist, throwing Khali across the room. Coughing blood, she staggered to her feet just in time to avoid another strike as the Astartes pressed its advantage. She sunk her knife into its leg, which elicited a grunt of pain but not much else, and the Astartes swung its blade wide nearly cleaving her in twain. Khali blocked another haymaker, gasping in pain as her forearm broke beneath the blow. Rebounding from the blow, she pirhouetted fast. Lashing out, her hook found purchase in the Astartes' throat. Momentum tore through muscles and arteries in a great gout of blood and the formidable soldier slumped to the ground. Staggerring sideways she stumbled to one knee, taking deep shuddering breaths. Bloodied and broken, but alive.
In the shadows behind her, an arachnid-like Haemonculus scrawled into her research notes. 'Subject K-46...shows promise'.She's based on this brilliant Lelith conversion by Eye of Error:
I hope I've done it justice!
I also had some Wych legs turn up, so thought I'd do a little step-by-step for my next Bloodbride
hopefully they're simple enough that it won't put people off from trying, but enough to show people some tips
So, to kick it off, the tools of the trade
Pair of electrical clippers (have a wedged cutting edge rather than a flat one like hobby clippers which is
worse! Not sure why I've not bought a pair of proper clippers yet), plastic glue and a very large reasonably sharp knife. I tried a scalpel/hobby knife a while ago and managed to snap the blade. Personally I prefer the hunting knife as it's actually a bit safer. There's more surface area to hold it by, and it's easier to get leverage on without slipping. Probably more importantly, it's what I'm comfortable with. Oh, and there's a dremel too but I don't use that for most conversions
Anyway, enough about the wrong tools for the job...
Here's what we start with:
Wych legs and a couple of Wych kits with most of the bits picked off them (one kit would do, but I don't have a full one left).
Might seem simple, but legs go down first. They're the only fixed part of a multi-pose model, so the whole pose will stem from what the legs look like.
Then bodies go on. I always find that putting a body on at a degree of rotation, even if it's just a slight one, helps with making a pose look both natural and dynamic. Since these guys are running full-tilt, they get quite a big degree of rotation. It's also good to vary up which way they face
Then, we get to the main bit I wanted to use in the first place. Razorflails!
Here's where the trick to 4-armed stuff comes in
You cut off the rounded bit at the top of the shoulder to make a flat face like so:
...and stick it to the body using that new flat edge. That gap below we'll use to fit the lower arm.
Now, this frankly godawful picture is where the other Razorflail arm wants to sit, which won't quite work for us. Not only did it not really look in the right position compared to the other arm now (if in doubt about a pose, I find that physically acting it out helps you to get where your various body parts sit naturally), but there's also no space for the lower arm. A bit of holding it up in different places got to where I want it to be:
So, clip off the rounded end a bit. I also found that there wasn't much space for the lower arm to wedge in so I shaved the underside of the arm joint to make is slimmer.
More holding it in place showed that it still didn't seem high enough, fouling on the leading edge of the shoulder pad so that had to go.
And glued in place
with a space to wedge the lower arm in again
Now, if you were just reposing you could fill those gaps in with GS. But for these guys, we'll use these
Took a little bit of sifting through bits to get the right arms. One of the things I wanted to do on these is to have each pair of arms (upper and lower) mirror each other somewhat in pose. I tried just picking out cool arms, and they just look like they were flailing wildly windmilling all over the place. With paired poses, they look much more cohesive
So, hold it up in place to see what sort of angle you want to cut...
...cut the end of the arm into a wedge shape...
...realise you've cut it wrong and the arm's much further back in its swing than you planned...
...look at it from a couple of angles and decide that it looks cool anyway so glue it in place
With a bit of work shaping and trialling the wedge you can get it to fit quite snugly which will prevent the need for GS.
Then, repeat the procedure with the other arm
hold in place to get the wedge shape. Cut it. Skim it down so it fits snugly and glue it in place
Last thing to go on is the head
most of the time I'll spend a little while holding the head in different positions to see what looks cool, but this one was obvious. If he's hitting something with his sword then he's going to be looking at what he's hitting.
And done!
Hope that was helpful
Also got the bits to finish the Shardnet Bloodbride I'd mostly done
And all three done so far